Traditionally, digital video recorders (DVRs) require a set-top box (STB) with a hard drive contained in it. The hard drive is utilized to record media content item for future viewing. Media item content that is recorded in order to be viewed at a later time is referred to as “time shifted” content. It is further commonplace for a household to have more than one STB each capable of independently recording and playing back media content item.
Unfortunately, because each STB acts independently of other STBs in a home, multiple redundant copies of the same media content item may be recorded on different STBs using up valuable storage space. Furthermore, DVRs are often programmed to record much more content than they are able to store. As a result, recorded content must often times be erased to make space for a new media item before a user has an opportunity to consume the media item.
As such, there exists a need to reduce or eliminate the unnecessary recording of multiple copies of the same time-shifted media item in a home with multiple STBs and multiple media storage repositories, such as DVRs. There further exists a need to store recorded media items in a manner that avoids or otherwise prevents the deletion of unwatched media items.